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Friday, 16 March 2012

At last - I've discovered something good at - and it's only taken me 36 years! And while I'm at it I thought I would enter the digital age and start a blog about it too.

I was taken with the idea of sewing bags and purses for a Christmas fair at my son's school last year, after making a patchwork bag for my boyfriend's daughter and realising how much I'd enjoyed it. At the same time I deicdded that I wanted to raise some money for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research in memory of my Mum - just sending off a cheque with no effort involved didn't feel like a way in whcih I wanted to make a donation. So I spent weeks and weeks sewing, buying material, cutting fabric, bleeding on said fabric (oops, don't tell anyone) after repeatedly stabbing myself with sewing needles and generally making a huge mess at home. The end result was in the region of 25 bags, purses and dangly gingham hearts, ready for the fair.

The fair went... badly. I sold four gingham hearts and only shifted a couple of purses because my boyfriend and father felt sorry for me, bless them. But was I down? No! Sitting there all day having people pick things up and not buy them wasn't great, but the number of comments I got about how lovely everything was really encouraged me. So after a few weeks' hiatus spent tidying up, reading, speaking to my loved ones again (instead of steadily focussing on a needles and thread and mumbling the odd comment) and behaving like a human being once more, I took up my needle once more. I started a snakes and ladders board on coloured felt squares, which is a work in progress (I think I'm up to around 48). But slightly more excitingly I completed this bunny:

I've also started making jewellery. Now this (ok, probably just to me...) is REALLY exciting. I get to use TOOLS. I feel like a real, live artisan curling bits of tongs round my pair of round-nosed pliers that I bought specially for the purpose. I don't seem able to post a picture of the first bracelet I made, so maybe I'll quit while I'm ahead and put it up another day.